


Can You Ever Really Own a Horse?

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 16:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11695065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: Bellamy ended up as Roan "The Iceman" King's personal assistant because his temp agency thought it would be a good fit for him. He's not convinced that's true, but Roan's publicist/agent is really cute, so Bellamy's still putting up with him.





	Can You Ever Really Own a Horse?

**Boss** : I think I should get a pet

Bellamy glances down at the phone and does his very best to neither wince nor scowl. It's a familiar exercise, the same thing he does _every time_ he receives any kind of communication from Roan. It's remarkable that even the most innocuous texts fill him with existential dread, but he figures that's just a sign that he's been paying attention. After two years as Roan "The Iceman" King's personal assistant, he knows that there are no safe requests. Everything is a potential minefield.

 **Boss** : I'm thinking something exotic  
Get me a list of snakes I can legally own in the state of California

This one is definitely worse than usual, and he takes a screenshot of the notifications and ignores the messages for now, instead opening up his conversation with Clarke.

 **Me** : Thoughts?  
[img]

 **Clarke** : JFC  
A snake?  
Really?

 **Me** : One snake would probably be fine  
But if we give him a full list he'll probably find like five he likes  
He didn't mention any of this?

 **Clarke** : Give me a sec  
I'm checking back over his recent communications to see if someone somehow implied he should get a pet  
So I can murder them

 **Me** : Now you jinxed it and it's going to turn out it was you

 **Clarke** : [middle finger emoji]

It's hard to decide what part of Bellamy's life is most bizarre, these days. It's clearly _something_ about the Roan gig, but there's so much competition for which part. The out-of-nowhere texts at ten at night about things Roan is convinced he needs are right up there, but really the whole enterprise works together to form a surreal tapestry that he is doing his best to never normalize. That's the key, he's decided. He has to always, always remember how weird this is. He can't let himself lose sight of reality.

 **Boss** : Did you know you can't own a cobra?  
You can keep it, but it will never be yours  
I want five

 **Me** : Have you ever had a pet before?  
I don't think you should start with five snakes  
I'm not even sure you should start with one snake  
Maybe a hamster

 **Boss** : Why would I keep a hamster when I could feed it to my snakes?

 **Me** : Yeah, you're right  
That's clearly the only thing anyone would ever do with a hamster

He switches windows again and pulls up Clarke, who is being worryingly silent. She's supposed to have a solution for him by now. She's his backup on these things. It's her job to figure out why Roan does what he does and tell him how seriously he should take it.

Honestly, if it weren't for Clarke, he probably would have had to quit after the first few months, and that's only half because he had a crush on her he wanted to keep nurturing. She's Roan's agent and publicist, and she's great at her job in the same way Bellamy is great at his: she can handle Roan about sixty percent of the time, and between her sixty-percent and Bellamy's sixty-percent, taking into account the times when their abilities overlap, they can manage him about eighty percent of the time.

Getting five cobras might be one of the things neither of them can deal with.

 **Me** : Clarke please  
I don't want to have to feed five cobras

 **Clarke** : How did we already escalate to five cobras?

 **Me** : [img]

 **Clarke** : Of course  
But good news   
I think I figured it out  
Dwayne Johnson is getting good press for getting a rescue dog  
So Roan wants a pet

If Bellamy were to make a list of things he doesn't understand about his boss, it would take about fifty years to write and be longer than the entire _A Song of Ice and Fire_ series, even once it's actually complete. It would require footnotes and endnotes and a bibliography and no one would ever publish it, because no one wants a celebrity tell-all that would break their foot when they inevitably dropped it because it weighed a metric ton.

But if he wrote that theoretical list/book/rant, there would be an entire chapter dedicated to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. This is not because Dwayne is a major player in Roan's day-to-day life; in the past two years, Bellamy's met the man maybe five times, max. Every time, he's been nothing but outgoing, friendly, and charming, basically everything Bellamy would have expected from his public persona. He immediately pegged Bellamy as another Pacific Islander, and they had a nice chat about the Philippines which Dwayne has never forgotten, just like he hasn't forgotten Bellamy's name or any other personal information about him. It's as impressive as it is terrifying.

Even before Bellamy had met the man, Roan's grudge against The Rock had been pretty baffling. The leading theory, proposed by Clarke, is that it's because of their similarities, which makes as much sense as anything. Like Dwayne Johnson, Roan had started out as a wrestler primarily known by his stage name. Both men made the jump from wrestling to acting, and then to wider celebrity. Part of Bellamy had hoped that there was something more to it, some kind of bad blood that would justify the animosity, but from what he can tell, it's just because Dwayne is more popular than Roan, and Roan is bitter about it.

 **Me** : So you're going to explain that getting five snakes won't actually make anyone think he's a selfless, charitable person, right?

 **Clarke** : Do you want a kitten?

 **Me** : Not if Roan's five cobras are going to eat it  
You're going to try to talk him into a kitten instead?

 **Clarke** : I think we should adopt a kitten, pretend you found it abandoned, and then let Roan say he found it abandoned instead  
I know that sounds complicated  
But just think about how much trouble it would be to set Roan up to find an abandoned kitten 

**Me** : No, no  
That makes total sense  
I'm on board  
I'm just not convinced a kitten is going to be enough to make him forget about illegally smuggling a bunch of snakes into the country

 **Clarke** : Well, that's the good news  
There's no way he's competent enough to smuggle snakes himself  
You'd have to do it for him

 **Me** : That's not good news  
I don't want to do it either

 **Clarke** : Yeah but you've got options:  
1\. Say you'll work on it and hope he never mentions it again  
2\. I found an article about a guy getting busted for smuggling a cobra in a Pringles can, change the date on that and tell him that was his snake  
3\. Tell him the kitten is better PR, but only if a cobra doesn't eat it  
4\. Are we sure he knows what a cobra is? Put some stuffing in a tube sock and draw a smiley face on it

 **Me** : Let's start with the kitten and go from there

 **Clarke** : I'm putting a lunch meeting on your schedule so we can pick one out tomorrow   
Don't worry, we've got this

 **Me** : My hero

He switches back to Roan and stares at the message for a while, trying to figure out what he can possibly say.

Finally, he settles on _I'll look into it tomorrow_ , and flops onto his back. 

He really doesn't get paid enough for this.

*

Like most of the weirder jobs Bellamy has had, his stint as Roan's PA started off as a temp position. He'd been with his agency for a while, doing a string of odd jobs, when his recruiter sat him down and asked, "How are you with celebrities?"

Bellamy frowned. "Uh, fine, I guess? I've lived in LA my whole life and I worked at some pretty nice restaurants, so I've interacted with a few. Depends on what you want me to do." 

"I think you might be a good fit for one of our more--challenging clients. Have you heard of Roan King?"

"The wrestler?"

She beamed. "Exactly. He needs a personal assistant. He's eccentric and can be difficult, but I think you might be a good fit for his unique needs. And there would be a significant pay increase."

It had seemed fairly low-risk, as assignments went. He'd thought his worst-case scenario would be that he worked for a few weeks for a demanding asshole, and then he'd be done.

And then, he met Clarke.

That was his second week on the job, and Roan had tasked him with booking a last-minute trip to Hokkaido so he could experience the healing power of the onsen in winter.

He'd sort of been planning to quit, too, when Clarke breezed in, all loose blonde braid and palpable aura of competence.

"You're the new temp?" she asked.

"Yeah." He stood and offered his hand. "Bellamy Blake."

"Clarke Griffin. Agent-slash-publicist-slash-life coach."

"Life coach?"

"Okay, probably not life coach. But I'm the other person responsible for making sure he isn't allowed to make all of his own decisions, so--yeah. How's it going?"

He considered her. "So far? Really fucking weird."

As he hoped she would, she laughed and flopped down in the chair next to his. "Sounds right. What's he got you doing?"

It probably would have been in all ways better for his life if he'd quit before he met her. It's not actually a good idea to stay in a shitty job just because a pretty girl is involved. But it's not like Clarke is _just_ a pretty girl. She's smart and funny and kind of terrifyingly focused, at least when it comes to other people's lives. Her apartment is a disaster and any time he sees her outside of work hours she's wearing pajamas and drinking box wine, but that's kind of awesome too.

If he's going to keep a job just for a girl, Clarke Griffin is 100% the right girl to do it for. Still, he probably should have run the other way when Roan offered to actually hire him.

But he didn't, so here he is, selecting a kitten he can pretend to rescue so his boss won't force him to try to care for an army of poisonous snakes.

"Are these at least actually kittens in need?" he asks, frowning at a cage with two mewling tabbies. They're cute, but he has no idea how to form an opinion about any of them. "Or are these actor kittens who live a life of luxury?"

Clarke rolls her eyes. "They're kittens who need adopting. Most of them aren't actually _rescues_ , because rescue cats tend to be older, but they need homes. If you want to get an older rescue cat to balance our your karma, we can do that later."

"I already don't need one cat, let alone a second cat to fight with the first cat." He looks over the cages with a sigh. "Jesus. How the fuck do we pick one of these? Is there a difference between--cats?"

"They're all different, yeah. Just pick one up. See how you like it."

"I can just pick one up?"

"Have _you_ never had a pet?"

"Not really. I googled it, so I should be fine. It sounds pretty simple."

"Okay, so just--" She looks around, somehow picking one kitten out of the dozens and holding it up for his approval. It's cute, obviously, because it's a _kitten_. It's mostly black with orange and gold splotches, and big green eyes, and it feels so fragile in his hands. He can feel every one of its tiny ribs.

It meows at him, and he lets it sniff his finger.

Clarke holds up her phone and takes a picture, and he raises his eyebrows as she takes another.

"Are you doing kitten headshots?"

"Nope. Just saving these for my own personal use. Sometimes you need to look at a picture of a hot guy holding a kitten."

He does his best not to flush. It's not like he thinks he's _not_ hot. He assumed she'd noticed. "Should I try a different one?"

"I don't know. Do you like that one?"

It meows again, and rubs its head against his finger.

"This one is cute."

Clarke grins. "You like the kitten."

"It's a _kitten_ , Clarke. Who doesn't like kittens? I'd be a monster."

She leans over to check the card on the cage. "Her name is Lydia, and they did find her and her siblings abandoned, so--basically a rescue."

He frowns. "That's a shitty name for a kitten."

"Didn't you name your human sister Octavia? Isn't she still mad at you about it?"

"She's getting over it. Now it's cool to have a unique name. She only reminds me how traumatic it was never finding anything with her name on it at Six Flags like once a year."

"Because there's so much Bellamy merchandise," she says. She reaches out and lets his kitten sniff her too. "So, if Lydia isn't a good kitten name, what are you going to call her?"

"I should wait, right? Roan's going to want to give her some shitty celebrity name."

"Or you name her before he can and save her from that."

"Or that."

"Think about it while we do the paperwork."

It's a pretty straightforward process, getting the kitten from the shelter. Bellamy signs his name and pays some fees, which Clarke promises to have Roan recoup if he ends up taking the kitten from Bellamy, which seems incredibly unlikely. He's pretty sure Roan isn't actually a pet person. It would require too much thinking about another living thing.

But it would suck if he did.

"You should probably wait a few days to introduce her and Roan," Clarke muses.

"Yeah?"

"He'd get suspicious if we told him we found a kitten a day after his snake thing."

"That's true." Roan is eccentric, not stupid. Which is really the largest part of why he's so terrible to work with. If he were stupid, Bellamy and Clarke would run rings around him. "So what do I do with the kitten for the rest of the day? He'll notice if I bring her back with me."

"I'll take her to my office. You can pick her up when you're done for the day."

This kitten plan involves a lot of spending time with Clarke. If he'd known that, he would have suggested it months ago.

"Okay, cool. Thanks."

"Spending my lunch break with kittens isn't exactly a hardship. Did you come up with a name?"

"Mogget." She raises her eyebrows, and he shrugs. "From a book. It's a male and not really a cat, but I figure she doesn't care."

"Mogget," Clarke repeats. She takes the kitten from him to inspect her. "Yeah, I like it. She looks like a Mogget."

Bellamy holds up his phone, and she cocks her head. "I want to start my cute girls with kittens collection," he says.

She laughs and strikes a pose, and so far this is her best plan ever.

*

"I can tell you're reluctant about the snakes."

Bellamy was spared from the snake conversation in the morning because Roan had an appearance on a talk show to discuss his upcoming film, _Boxing Match_. It's actually one of Bellamy's favorite projects of his, because it's basically a classic rom-com, two coworkers with a love/hate rivalry who end up enrolled in the same boxing program after work, where they end up falling in love under the watchful eye of the instructor, Roan. It's getting a lot of buzz for the same reason Clarke pushed Roan to take the role in the first place and the same reason Bellamy likes it--the love story is between two men, and it's a big studio release, something that's getting pushed just as hard as romantic comedies focused on relationships with men and women. Roan's thrilled about it, taking the opportunity to talk about his own road to identifying as pansexual, and that's another reason Bellamy doesn't quit. Because Roan is, on some level, an admirable person.

He's just also a fucking weirdo.

"Of course not," Bellamy says, deadpan, when Roan just looks at him. "Who wouldn't want five poisonous, possibly illegal snakes? That sounds great."

"People safely keep snakes all the time."

"But they don't own them, right? That's what I was getting from your texts."

"They're wild animals."

"Yeah, that's a good reason to not own them _or_ keep them." He sighs. "Look, I'm doing some research. But you don't want to get arrested for smuggling illegal wildlife into the country, and neither do I. And I have screenshots of your texts," he adds, "so if I go down, I'm taking you with me."

Roan considers. "I'm concerned that I no longer have a thing."

"I'm going to need more information before I respond to that."

"I'm not The Iceman anymore. Without a gimmick, I don't have a hook either. I need something to make myself memorable to my audience."

"That sounds like a Clarke problem," he says.

"Yes, what is Clarke's opinion on the snakes? I assume you consulted her."

"What do you think?"

"She also won't let me defend my brand on Twitter. I'm not convinced she really knows what she's doing with this part of the marketing."

It doesn't feel like the time to point out people who point out his Iceman persona was essentially the same as the Batman villain Mr. Freeze are actually doing any damage to his brand, nor that his threatening to find and physically fight them was not a constructive way of responding. There's a reason Clarke locked him out of his own Twitter account.

"Do you really want to be known as the _snake guy_? I don't think that's a net positive."

"Maybe not." He considers. "I'll talk to Clarke." His phone starts playing _I'm Too Sexy_ , and Bellamy winces, a reflexive, Pavlovian response. Roan just smirks. "Ready?"

"It's not a selfie if I take it, you know," he grumbles, like always, but he still catches Roan's shirt when he throws it.

If Roan has a current brand, it's probably _naked selfie dude_. Which is a good brand, honestly. He doesn't need to add snakes to that, even if they're a pretty natural addition. He can just imagine Roan doing a shirtless pull-up with a snake wrapped around his shoulders.

The fact that he can imagine this so easily is one of the leading reasons he drinks.

"I think poolside today," says Roan, stepping out of his jeans and boxers all at once. It's a good thing that familiarity with Roan as a human being renders it impossible for Bellamy to be attracted to him, because otherwise his casual disregard for clothing would be a problem. As it is, Bellamy just does a quick check to make sure Roan hasn't gotten any new tattoos without his knowledge and then looks away.

The daily selfies are one of the few parts of Roan's career that he manages entirely by himself. He has a schedule for posting them that only he understands, but from what he can tell, it's effective. The internet likes hot shirtless guys; who knew?

Roan gets his swimsuit on and spends about half an hour having Bellamy take fifteen different pictures from different angles, and then kills another ten minutes selecting the right one, applying filters, and composing his post. It's actually a little hypnotic to witness, to say nothing of surreal. It's times like this that Bellamy remembers how Roan got to this point, how he made himself a star in the first place. He's good at the celebrity part.

Once the selfies are done, Roan decides to actually swim for a while before his trainer shows up, and Bellamy ducks into the office to call Clarke.

"Did you know Roan takes up about eighty percent of my time as an agent?" Clarke asks when she picks up. "The rest of my clients are so low maintenance."

"Yeah, you tell me that basically every time I call you. Then you lie and say you're going gray."

"I dye it out."

"You're _twenty-eight_."

"And I've been working for Roan since I was twenty-four."

Clarke's responsible for Roan's crossover from wrestling to acting, in point of fact. She was the one who found him his first role, without being asked, a plucky young agent who decided to make a name for herself by essentially forcing her way into Roan's employment. It's not the choice he would have made, but it seems to have worked out for her.

And he's benefiting too.

"He thinks he needs a new thing," Bellamy tells her, cutting the usual argument a little shorter. He doesn't need to tell her how many gray hairs _he_ has. "I guess he wants to be the snake guy now."

"That's not really a good brand. The kitten would be better. No offense to snakes, but I don't think they're really very popular outside of niche markets."

"He's already famous for basically being weird. The snake goes with that."

"Weird and hot, and this wouldn't go that well with the hot part. Snakes would work if he was doing, like--music. Honestly, he's kind of a 90s grunge rocker stuck in the wrong decade."

"You should have tried to get him into a band," Bellamy muses.

"Ask him to play his guitar for you sometime and you'll see why I didn't." She sighs. "Okay. I'll talk to him about how real stars don't rely on gimmicks."

"The Rock doesn't need a snake."

"Exactly. When are you done today?"

"Probably like six? Six-thirty. He's got that podcast interview, I need to stick around for that."

She hums. "Okay. I'm going to work from home for the rest of the day, so come over there to get the kitten. I'll get takeout."

"Are you bribing me? Do you have more bad news?"

"Maybe I just enjoy your company and want to hang out." Before he has a chance to respond to that, she adds, "Text me when you leave Roan's," and hangs up without a goodbye.

 **Me** : Get pizza  
Spinach and feta

 **Clarke** : I know, I know  
I've got you

He screenshots those too, just for himself, and he's grinning when he hears Roan yell for him.

*

It's almost seven-thirty by the time he actually gets to Clarke's, because the podcast thing started late and went past the allotted time because Roan got distracted by a long rant about how even his mother, one of the most evil people he knew, had realized she couldn't vote for Trump, which had absolutely nothing to do with the ostensible point of the podcast (wrestling), but the hosts didn't seem to mind.

Clarke has a beer in hand for him when she opens the door, and hands it over without a word.

"You're my favorite person," he tells her, too honest, and she just smiles.

"You can even crash on my couch if you drink too much. Pizza in like ten minutes."

"Awesome. Where's my cat?"

Mogget is on the couch, curled up in a sweatshirt of Bellamy's that he didn't even realize he was missing. When he raises his eyebrows at Clarke, she just shrugs, takes a sip of her wine. "You loaned it to me at that outdoor shoot Roan had for _Men's Health_ and I keep forgetting to return it. I figured I should get her used to how you smell."

"I guess that makes sense." He sits down next to the kitten, who blinks sleepy green eyes at him. He lets her smell him again, and she butts her little head into his palm, purring up a storm. She really is adorable. "How'd she do?"

"She's already housebroken, so that's good. She likes attention, so it'll be good if you bring her to work with you. Kind of a loud, opinionated brat, but I know that's a plus for you."

He snorts. "Yeah, sounds like my kind of cat. Thanks for taking her."

"It was my idea," Clarke points out. "The least I can do is help out. You can probably tell Roan tomorrow. Just say--"

"I found a kitten on the street? There's no way he buys that."

"So tell him the truth. We were looking into kittens because we thought they'd be better for him than snakes, and you decided to adopt one, so he might as well act like it's his kitten."

"I appreciate that your definition of _the truth_ isn't actually the truth," he says, and she grins.

"The truth-ish."

"I'll figure something out." 

The pizza shows up, and Clarke settles in next to him on the couch with her slice. Ordinarily when they hang out like this, the middle cushion is between them, but with the kitten and the sweatshirt occupying their own spot, Bellamy's a lot closer to Clarke than usual. He's trying not to notice.

"So, aside from the kitten, how was your day?" he asks.

"As always, less exciting than yours. Luna wants to start her own food and clothing line."

Bellamy's met Luna a few times, and it's always a surprise to him that she's not as high maintenance as Roan, because she has the same odd combination of ambition and eccentricity that Roan does, she just hides it better. According to Clarke, the big difference is that she can be managed via text.

"Is that a food line and a clothing line," he asks, "or is it a line of clothing that you can also eat?"

Clarke frowns. "Shit. I don't know. I should have asked her."

"Does it bother you that these are actual questions you have to ask about your life?" he asks. "Or did having parents involved in the industry mean that you just grew up thinking of this as normal?"

"Not _normal_. But yeah, I think I'd probably find real jobs kind of boring. Go into an office, do normal things, no one ever texts you at ten at night asking how to get five cobras--"

"Yeah, that sounds pretty great."

"You could quit," she says, with a deliberate lightness in her voice. "Or work for one of the normal celebrities. Wells could probably use an assistant."

The thought makes his heart twinge. Even if he worked for another of Clarke's clients, he probably wouldn't need to talk to her as often. Wells definitely never has snake crises. "I don't really want to be responsible for unleashing an unsupervised Roan onto the world," he tells her, attention on his pizza.

"I'd make him get a new assistant."

"Yeah, but I'm irreplaceable."

She smiles. "That's definitely true. Do you want another beer?" she adds, eyes flicking to the empty bottle in his hand.

"Not if I'm driving home."

"You don't have to go home. Hang out. You've had a stressful week, and it's not even over yet."

"Do you do this with all your clients' assistants?" he asks, and it doesn't come out as casual as he wants it to. The answer matters to him.

Judging from her smile, she doesn't mind that. "Nope. Just you."

"Then yeah," he says, feeling warm and a little stupid. The kitten has moved into his lap, but he and Clarke are still close enough that their shoulders are brushing, and they've got some stupid thing on Netflix and Clarke's couch is really comfortable. "I'll take another beer."

*

Clarke rides over to Roan's with him the next morning, Mogget curled into her lap and looking like the happiest kitten in the entire universe. Bellamy hopes she will be. That's definitely one of his goals.

As usual, Roan is sitting at the kitchen island when they arrive, naked, drinking one of his horrific morning smoothies. He made Bellamy try one once, claiming it would change his life, and Bellamy supposes it _did_ , in that once he knew that exact flavor existed, he couldn't unknow it. Sometimes, he still tastes it in his nightmares.

"Did the two of you finally sleep together?" Roan says, mostly to Clarke. Which is interesting. "I assumed you wouldn't share your morning after with me. I'm touched."

She takes it in stride. "Bellamy got a kitten."

"To celebrate sleeping with you?"

"To keep you from getting a snake. And don't make a stupid joke about about how I got a snake last night," she adds, because she does know Roan. "You want to gossip about our non-existent sex life. Got it. If I sleep with Bellamy, I'll bring doughnuts so you'll know. Move on." She nudges Bellamy. "Show him the kitten."

Bellamy gets Mogget out of the box she was in and offers her to Roan for his inspection. She regards him with suspicion, and Roan returns the look. 

"I don't understand how this stops me from getting a snake," he finally says.

"I'm not sure there's worse publicity than _my cobra ate my assistant's kitten_ ," Clarke says. "That's probably the worst press ever."

"Ah. So Bellamy will bring his kitten to work so that I can't get a snake for fear that the snake will eat the kitten. Truly Machiavellian."

"Also, you can just post a bunch of shirtless photos with the kitten instead of a snake," she says. "Trust me, this is a brand."

"My brand is shirtless with my assistant's cat?"

"Your actual brand is a lot more complicated. But you really don't need to add deadly snakes to it. I can't emphasize how much you don't need snakes."

"You two are aware I'm an adult, aren't you? I don't need your permission to own snakes."

"You did ask me to help you get the snakes," Bellamy points out. Which might be a mistake because the last thing he wants is for Roan to independently try to obtain a cobra. If he ever comes into work and finds five snakes have arrived in the night, he'll probably have a heart attack.

"Because you work for me. It's your job to find snakes for me."

"That's _other duties as required_ ," Clarke tells him, in a stage whisper, and he snorts. 

"Thanks for clearing that up. This isn't my first rodeo. Can you put on some clothes?" he adds to Roan. "I feel weird letting you pet the kitten naked."

"Yeah, that sounds like a really unfortunate euphemism for something," Clarke says, sitting next to him at this island. "Are you always naked when Bellamy gets to work? You know he could sue you for sexual harassment, right?"

"If he was going to sue me, he already would have," Roan says, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I've given him plenty of opportunities."

"I'm saving it all for my 900-page tell-all memoir," he tells Clarke. "Don't worry."

Roan slides off the stool and drains his disgusting smoothie. It's nice that Clarke isn't checking him out either, although not really surprising. He assumes she knows him well enough to destroy all attraction too.

And Roan thinks they're sleeping together. Which--he's definitely going to come back to that one. It was news to him, but didn't seem to be to Clarke. And that's kind of awesome.

For now, he just asks, "Do you think if I threatened to quit over the snake thing, that would work?"

"Would you?"

"Quit?"

"Yeah."

"Honestly, if he made me try to take care of five cobras, yeah, I'd probably quit. You'd get me a job with Wells, right? I assume you're writing my letter of recommendation, not Roan."

"He'd say all sorts of nice things about you."

"Yeah, but I'm not convinced they'd turn into a letter. Probably an instagram post."

"Probably." She worries her lip. "You'd miss it though, right? You love dealing with Roan."

"I think of it as a love/hate relationship," he grumbles, and she grins.

"You'd be totally bored at a desk job."

"I could just slowly work on making Wells weirder. He's way too well adjusted to be a celebrity."

"Don't corrupt Wells, Bellamy. Wells is pure."

"I could help Luna with her edible underwear line."

"It's actually edible vegan t-shirts," Clarke says, trying to maintain some kind of serious expression and falling apart halfway through. 

Bellamy's not doing any better. "Holy shit, the shirts are actually edible?"

"They're supposed to replenish your electrolytes after a workout."

"How is she a low-maintenance client again?"

"She's not expecting me to _help_."

They're still laughing when Roan comes back downstairs, dressed in a pink kimono-style silk bathrobe, eyebrows raised. Bellamy hates that he knows the bathrobe is a sign of imminent selfies, and hates even more that his cat is probably going to be involved. Mogget doesn't deserve this life, even if that's why he got her in the first place. She shouldn't have to be in Roan's pictures. She should be free.

But when Roan holds out his hand, she cautiously sniffs it, so maybe show business will be a good fit for her. He wouldn't want to hold her back.

"She is cute," Roan says, almost reluctantly. "If you're into mammals."

"If you're not into mammals, don't tell me," says Clarke. "I'd rather not be in a position to comment on that. Your kinks are your business."

"Ignorance is bliss." He takes Mogget from Bellamy and carefully holds her in one hand, like he's weighing her. "It's a very different vibe from five snakes."

Clarke crosses her arms over her chest. "Crossover appeal comes from being family friendly. Do you think Dwayne Johnson would be where he is today if he was always covered in poisonous snakes?"

"Don't bring Dwayne Johnson into this," Roan snaps.

Mogget meows, apparently unsatisfied with the amount of attention she's getting, and pulls Roan's focus back.

"We'll try one with the cat," he says, handing her to Bellamy so he can disrobe again. It's unclear why he bothered with the kimono in the first place, but Bellamy's not going to question it. "From the hip. I want it to be the view you'd have if you were giving me a blowjob."

"While the kitten watches?" Bellamy asks, but he's already crouching down. Like he told Clarke, this isn't his first rodeo. 

"You are so lucky Bellamy doesn't want to sue you," she says, shaking her head, but still comes over to advise him on camera angles. So he'll count the whole kitten plan as a win.

*

 **Boss** : After much contemplation  
And seeing the positive reactions to the selfie  
I've decided to accept the kitten in place of five snakes  
But I'd like to do a shoot with snakes  
You and Clarke can figure that out, I'm sure

 **Me** : I'm sure

 **Boss** : She told me she'd quit if I made you resign because I wouldn't give up on the snakes  
So I consider this both of your responsibility

 **Me** : Good to know  
It's three am, so I'm going to work on that in the morning  
On Monday  
Unless you give me a raise right the fuck now  
Like a big one  
At least four zeroes annually

 **Boss** : I'll see you on Monday

He does manage to get back to sleep until a respectable hour, which doesn't always work out, and once he's property awake, he texts Clarke to see if she wants to come hang out with his kitten and help him figure out the latest bizarre correspondence from Roan.

 **Clarke** : You know it's Saturday, right?

 **Me** : Shit, did you get a life outside of work and not tell me?  
Do you actually have plans

 **Clarke** : I was hoping you did  
For your sake  
But I guess it's okay if there's a kitten  
You want me to bring food?

 **Me** : I knew you didn't have a life  
See you soon

He gets the cat fed and makes as much coffee as his pot is capable of holding, because he does know Clarke pretty well at this point, and doesn't bother getting dressed beyond putting on a shirt in addition to his pajama pants. He's hoping this is going to be a fun, laid-back morning with one of his favorite people, that will turn into a whole day with her if things go well.

And he really thinks they might.

She shows up twenty minutes later with breakfast sandwiches, looking bright and surprisingly awake. She must have already had coffee at home. There's no way she's this peppy without chemical enhancement.

"You know if you want me to come play with your kitten, you can just say that. You don't have to pretend Roan sent some weird shit to hang out."

"He texted me at three last night."

Clarke slumps down on the couch, and he gives her a mug of coffee. Mogget comes over to sniff her toe.

"Seriously, how have you not quit yet?" 

"Apparently if I did, you'd quit too," he says.

He only catches her flush because he's watching for it; she takes a sip of coffee to hide her reaction basically instantly. Which is pretty much what he was hoping for.

"I thought it would be more persuasive if he was risking both of us. No one wants to deal with five cobras, Bellamy."

"No." He exhales. "He also thought we slept together."

"Did you want me to talk to him? I know I was joking about sexual harassment but that's really _not_ okay, and if you're bothered and feel like this is a hostile work environment, we can--"

"I want to sleep with you," he says, and regrets it immediately. "Uh, not--that sounded bad."

"It sounded pretty good to me." She's smiling now, watching him, and he finds himself grinning back. "But keep going anyway."

"I would have left this job after a month if I didn't like you so much."

She laughs. "You could have quit and asked me out, you know. You didn't have to keep the job to date me"

"That sounds so boring," he teases. "Who wants to miss out on two years of pining and fucking weird--"

He doesn't get a chance to finish because Clarke's mouth is on his, warm and insistent, like she's feeling every day of those two years she wasn't kissing him. He catches her jaw, cradling it, and moves her coffee mug out of the way with his other hand, so it won't get in their way.

The kiss isn't exactly like he thought it would be, of course. He didn't know the exact feel of her lips, the flavor of her lip gloss, the way her hair would feel under his fingers, the way she'd sigh and smile and always be pressing closer. He didn't know how eager she'd be, how sure of what she wanted, how he'd pull her into his lap and she'd just come at once, like all she was waiting for was an invitation.

It's not exactly like he thought, and it's _perfect_.

"So, Roan didn't have a disaster in the middle of the night," she murmurs, letting her fingers trail up his sides. "You just wanted to make out."

"Not a _big_ disaster," he says. "Nothing we can't handle. And we can make out first," he adds, tugging her back in.

Her smile is huge. "And after."

"Yeah," he says. "And after."

*

On Monday, Clarke comes with him to work and brings doughnuts with her. Bellamy's not expecting Roan to remember the significance, but he takes one look at the box, removes a chocolate-frosted one, and tells Clarke, "I can't believe it took you two years to sleep with him. I was about ready to sleep with him myself just to speed things along."

"Seriously, you're a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen," Clarke says. "Don't sleep with my boyfriend."

"He couldn't if he tried," says Bellamy, trying not to grin too obviously at the word _boyfriend_. He's a boyfriend. He's _Clarke's_ boyfriend. If Roan ever does something so egregious he has to quit, he'll still be Clarke's boyfriend. 

"Disgusting," says Roan. "Where's the kitten? I need my morning selfie. The fans are eager."

"You want to do that before or after we talk about photo-ops with the zoo? They're thrilled. They want to do a whole thing with it. Apparently the director of the reptile exhibit is a fan."

Roan brightens immediately. "Can I become an honorary zoo keeper? Could I do regular programs? Once a week or so. Maybe film it for Animal Planet--"

"These are the kinds of things we can discuss with them when we have the meeting." Clarke selects a doughnut, chocolate glazed, his favorite, and to his surprise, she gives it to him and gets a jelly for herself. "So, you want to do the selfie first? I'm still getting used to your morning schedule. This is new for me."

"Selfie first," says Roan. "My fans are everything, Clarke. We have to listen to their needs. And then we'll talk about the snakes."

This one they pose in the bathroom. Mogget is surprisingly okay with hanging out in the shower caddy, reaching one delicate paw out to swat at the water without any kind of direction, a born movie star if he's ever seen one. Roan assumes an expression of somewhat bemused affection, and Clarke rests her chin on Bellamy's shoulder as he starts snapping pictures, taking his usual care with the angles to make sure it looks like Roan might have, in some universe, managed to take these on his own.

"So, this is what you do, huh?" she asks.

He turns his neck to press his lips against her temple, smiling. "Yeah," he says. "This is my life."


End file.
